Skinny
by Brokie
Summary: RENTfic, in which Mark is depressed, angsty, and alone.


Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine, please don't sue.

Author's Note: Yeah. So, I'm really mean to Mark in this fic. Well, in all of my fics really, but still.. This doesn't really have a plot, or even that much of an ending. I would fix it, but I don't know how. I would sequel it, but I don't think I can handle having 3 unfinished fics at once. (Instead of just 2. Argh.) This is basically for everyone on Rentfic101 who wants more RENTfics. Um.. here ya go, hope you don't hate me when you finish reading. :-) A relatively new style of writing for me, so please read and review and all that jazz.

-SKINNY-

You're sitting on the couch. Just.. staring. At absolutely nothing. But no one is worried. If you were Roger, then maybe things would be different, but you aren't. You are yourself. And you guess that must be the problem.

Sometimes Roger yells at you. Tells you to get the fuck off the couch, so you do. You uncurl yourself and shuffle into your room and shut the door. Then you sit on your bed, and stare. Sometimes you find yourself staring off into space at some random object; the telephone, one of the pictures Collins tacked up on the wall way back when, Roger's empty guitar case. You wonder if the others think you are contemplating the lack of phone calls from dear old mom, or the way the colors blend in the cheap unframed painting, or the curling edges of the stickers that decorate the case. You wonder if they look at you when you don't care enough to notice and finally decide that you must be all right. You don't think they probably do.

You guess that you must just be a fairly easy person to ignore.

It isn't that you purposefully skip meals; you just forget sometimes. Or you aren't hungry, or maybe sometimes—a lot of the time—you are hungry but decide it would be best if you didn't eat right now. You go through the motions whenever someone is here, pouring yourself some cereal and crunching and swallowing thickly, fueled by your ancient desire to please them. But then you think about it and decide that it isn't what they want, anyway, because no one ever really notices. And besides, it doesn't seem to matter if you try to please them or not, because later you will just end up kneeling on the tile in the bathroom and sticking your finger down your throat. You guess that probably isn't what they want, either.

You can't find it in yourself to pick up your camera. You find you can waste away hours, days even, just staring mindlessly and letting your head buzz with reminders of things that you really don't want to think about. You are always, always freezing cold. But none of these things scare you, make you worry. The only thing that makes you afraid is when you discover that sometime during the past one or two or six months you have forgotten how to cry.

Things in the loft have changed recently. When you weren't looking (which is pretty much all the time), someone had gone around and replaced all the mirrors with pictures of a frightening man-child-ghost who stares at you and blinks back with wide, sunken eyes. This thing has pale skin and dirty hair and sometimes faintly reminds you of someone you used to know. It wears a t-shirt that is much too big for its small frame and has tiny wrists and bony elbows. Sometimes you forget it is only a picture and reach out to touch that empty face. Your fingers hit the smooth flat surface and the picture shakes its head at you. _Stupid Mark, _it seems to be thinking. _If only you were more like someone else._

Once, after staring at the picture for what you later decide is a little bit too long, you become very angry. Your fist swings back and connects with the hard surface of the picture, landing right square in the middle of the ghost boy's face. The picture shatters, tiny pieces tumbling to the ground. It's nice to feel for once, even if your hand hurts and bleeds for awhile after that. You sit on the floor and rearrange the shiny pieces idly until Roger comes home and yells and slams right back out again. Then you get up, clean up the mess you have made, and go back to the couch.

You really just do not know what to do in order to make it better. You aren't sure what you did in the first place, but you know it has to be something very bad to make them hate you like this.

You guess that Roger noticed a long time ago. Saw what you see when you look in the mirror, spotted the evidence of mistakes you have made while trying to find a way to cope. Heard the silence that exists only in this place, this little collection of rooms that used to be a home. And you guess, after realizing these things, that Roger just can't find it in himself to care.

And it isn't as if it is anyone's fault but yours. You really can't blame this on the others if you were the one to stop filming and stop eating, the one to start staring and start hating that you have to wake up every morning. Simple logic, even though that still requires too much thinking on your part. Simple statements, simple conclusions; it is always your fault, so technically, it really just can't be anyone else's in this situation, now can it? No, of course not.

You're not sure what you are afraid of. And even though that is supposed to be an answer, you can never seem to remember the question. But that, at least, doesn't worry you, because you sometimes don't care about anything anymore. And they don't understand, they think that because when they are around, you smile and eat and live and breathe, then you must be okay. You have to be. But you notice what has happened, how they don't ever ask you to fix their problems anymore, and you wonder if maybe you died sometime and no one thought to tell you.

And then, one day, someone notices.

You are in your usual spot, curled up in the corner of the couch. It is while sitting in this spot that you find out the mirrors haven't really been changed. And it is on this day that you remember how to cry.

-END-


End file.
